Aldous Huxley's Essay 'You Are A Manipulator'

You are a manipulator. I like to think of myself more as an outcome engineer.” This phrase was written by J.R. Ward, author of the Dark Brothers series. Similarly, in Aldous Huxley’s essay Words and Behavior, he writes that we purposely misuse language to “protect ourselves” (and each other) from what we don’t want to understand and from other people, as the speaking character was doing in the above quote, when he denied being a manipulative person. Huxley also asserts that we use language to justify “pride, hatred, and contempt” for different humans as the character above did when he pridefully separated his own manipulations from those of the character he was speaking to, as if his words were better than his friends. I wholeheartedly agree

For example, our President, Barack Obama, has claimed that his position on using executive authority to help deal with immigration issues remains unchanged. When asked early in his first presidency, he claimed he couldn’t help much because he was “not a king”. Compare this with his current stance, where he’s been quoted as saying he’s “obliged to do everything [he] can”. This statement that his position hasn’t changed is probably a political move designed to steer scrutiny away from his differing claims, protecting him, although most would probably agree it only makes him look like a hypocrite.

Some would counter argue that, in America, at least, we have the right to freedom of speech, and, because of this, there will be people out there who fact check and look for the truth in all statements. What these people fail to realize is that freedom of speech includes and covers, to some extent, the right to lie and to manipulate facts, and as long as the freedom of speech is not exclusively the right “to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God”, there will always be those conspiring to twist facts, turning the “truth” into a constant